Diet
What Mimic Octopuses eat The Mimic octopus has a varity diet of worms,craps and fish. This octopus mostly eats by covering a area of sand while using its tips of its strong arms to suck up small creatures in one of there suckers. Characteristics: The camouﬂage abilities of octopuses and their relatives, the squids and cuttlefish, are second to none as they are able to quickly change their color to blend in with their background. One species, the mimic octopus, is the undisputed king when it comes to disguise. Not only can it change its color as and when it needs to, but it can also use its ﬂ exible body to adopt the appearance and movements of a variety of sea creatures. In its normal foraging guise, the octopus inches along the seabed searching for suitable prey, exploring tunnels and burrows with its long, sensitive arms. Any crustaceans, worms, or small fish quaking in the burrows will try to swim for safety, only to be ensnared by the webbing between the upper parts of the octopus’s arms. Although the mimic octopus is a predator, the bare, silty seabed is a dangerous place for a large, soft-bodied animal. Predators abound, and many could easily make short work of this master of disguise. Should the octopus spy danger, it draws its arms into a leaﬂ ike shape, changes color to match the seabed, and swims offwith undulations of its body. The posture, color, and particularly the movement are startlingly similar to a number of ﬂ atfish found in the same area. These ﬂ atfish have venom glands at the base of their dorsal and anal fins, and many predators give them a wide berth. In situations when the predator isn’t fooled by the old ﬂ atfish trick, it swims up from the seabed and splays its arms wide. Cruising slowly through the water in this posture, it looks for all intents and purposes like a lionfish brandishing its venomous spines. The approaching predator has dealt with lionfish before, knowing their stings to be particularly painful, so it swims offand searches for easier pickings. The mimic octopus continues on its foraging rounds and then accidentally swims through the breeding ground of a damselfish, which happens to be fiercely territorial. The fish doesn’t take kindly to this intruder, and it goes on the offensive. With an angry damselfish bearing down on it, the octopus uses yet another of its impersonations and makes for the nearest hole. It changes color and pattern and sticks six of its arms into the hole, leaving two at the surface heading offin different directions, waving sinuously in the water. Hey presto—a convincing impersonation of a banded sea snake, an animal that will quite happily eat a damselfish. The aggressive fish gets the message and backs off. As splendid as these impersonations are, they are not the octopus’s entire repertoire. Some predators may be invulnerable to the poisonous spines of ﬂ atfish and lionfish and unfazed by the venomous bite of a sea snake. In these circumstances, the octopus may swim to the surface, fully extend its many arms, and ﬂoat slowly back toward the seabed in much the same way as certain jellyfish found in the same waters. Even if the stinging cells of a large jellyfish are not enough to deter some hungry predators, the octopus takes to the seaﬂ oor, and on a mound of silt, it raises its arms above its body to give a very convincing impression of a large, stinging anemone. crab-urchins-grall_18425_990x742.jpg|A crab that it eats